Writers' Retreat Weekend!

I returned home yesterday from Stanford, Kentucky, where my online Mid-South SCBWI critique group met for a weekend of writing. We had not seen each other since last year's Mid-South Conference in September, which is where most of us met for the first time!

Beth arranged for us to stay in the Bishop House, a lovely 3-story home, so there was plenty of room for the five attendees to get away for some quiet writing time. We were often gathered around the dining room table, all with our laptops whirring! I also did a fair bit of writing on the front porch, where I am pictured at the left with Grace. For myself, I started a story from scratch this weekend and wrote 6,500 words. That felt pretty productive. It is a short story that I hope to continue on into a book, and I'm very excited about it. We also had nightly critique sessions where we read each other's work out loud then discussed. What a talented group.

Thanks to Beth, we spent a fair amount of time eating delicious food and walking around the small town of Stanford. I look forward to seeing all (I hope) of the Original Seven at this year's Mid-South Conference.

Articles for the Westside and BorderLines

Whew! Just finished my latest article for the Westside this afternoon, and I feel drained. Maybe it's because I put it off too long and had to suddenly get it all finished in the last two days. But finish it I did, another deadline successfully met. This article, which is a cover story scheduled for June 12th, was an article I suggested. It is about Bob of Bob's Gym, an Evansville business that has turned into an Evansville icon. Since I am at the west side location pretty faithfully, it was really cool to learn how Bob and his parents started the business 18 years ago in a much smaller west side building. Bob and his dad were a lot of fun to talk to, and everyone was very helpful. Since I am at the gym almost every day, I sure hope Bob and everyone there likes it!

The article was finished and submitted early this afternoon, but then the pictures had to be sent, always a lengthy process. But assuming I get no questions from my editor, I'm all done for now!

I have also posted a link to my latest non-Westside article. This one is in BorderLines, the newsletter for Mid-South SCBWI. I was pleased with it and hope everyone will take a look. Maybe now that article-writing is done (for now), I can do a little creative writing over the next couple of weeks...